Monday, January 14, 2013

what a difference 2 years can make

waaay back in 2011, the last time republicans in the house took the debt ceiling hostage and threatened to kill the economy unless they got what they wanted, i noted that the republican's threat was actually empty:

for weeks, i have been watching this whole spectacle over the debt
ceiling with a bit of embarrassment. but in the back of my mind i have
been reassured that actual default is unlikely. that this attempt by the
republican party to hold the full faith and credit of the united states
hostage to extract spending cuts from the democrats is ultimately a
bluff. the financial industry and chamber of commerce, the people who
fund and really pull the strings of the GOP, will not tolerate a
default. so as long as the president could hold out long enough, the
other side would ultimately crumble, taking whatever best deal they can
get.

a few weeks later, after captain caveman continued to act as if the republicans really would piss in their own pot, i started to despair:

and, of course they never did pull that string. the president caved in and we had the stupid super-committee/sequester deal, the thing that created half of the dreaded "fiscal cliff". so now we got through that, the GOP is trying to start all over and do it again.